


Meddlesome Priest

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Father Brown (2013), Father Brown - G. K. Chesterton
Genre: (after a fashion), 1950s, Angst and Humor, Biblical References, Bicycles, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Cold War, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Fix-it, Families of Choice, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religion, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, The Owl of Minerva, Theology, Wakes & Funerals, and it shows, freemasonry (referenced), had better also tag this for, i am bitter about the lack of character development for inspector sullivan, mozart - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 22:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13579788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: Set during/around the concluding scenes of "The Owl of Minerva," this fic explores a version of events in which the relationship between Inspector Sullivan and Father Brown actuallydoesdevelop in light of the episode's dramatic events, and in which we get to see a little more of what lies beneath the inspector's carefully opaque, sometimes brittle façade, and his frequently merciless passion for order.





	Meddlesome Priest

**Author's Note:**

> This is tagged for the G.K. Chesterton stories because my version of Father Brown is much more his than it is that of the recent series (or at least it tries to be!) and this kind of conversation is inspired by similar ones invoked by GKC, especially in "The Blue Cross." The opera described by Inspector Sullivan is the one he's listening to in the episode, "Die Zauberflöte."

The silence under the echoing vault seemed curiously long, curiously absolute. Then the tableau broke, as if at a command. Truman tightened his grasp, and the prisoner — too proud, Sullivan supposed, to be now recalcitrant — walked stiffly to the police car. The priest, holding the invaluable briefcase, shambled (there was really no other word for it) in Truman’s wake. He himself lowered the gun, mildly surprised to note that his hand did not tremble.

“Sullivan?”

He brought his shoulders back, crossed to the car with what he hoped was a creditably firm gait, and handed over the pistol, meeting his colleague’s gaze steadily. He ought to show no hesitation, and no embarrassment. Truman’s light eyes were, as ever, unreadable.

“If you’d like to come back in the car…” began that flat, neutral voice, and Sullivan had to consciously keep himself from stepping backwards.

“Oh!” It took him a moment to realize that the gasp was not his own. “But we’ll need to bring the bicycles back to the station!” The priest was gazing at Truman, wearing his habitual expression of astonishment. Sullivan wondered, almost idly, why he found it so irritating; perhaps it was because he knew it not to be genuine. “Won’t we, inspector?”

It was something of a surprise to find his authority appealed to in such a familiar context, as if matter-of-factly. He shook his head in hopes of clearing it. “Yes, we, er… thank you, Truman, we…” _God, pull yourself together, man_ … “the bicycles,” he concluded.

Truman nodded briskly. “Quite right. I trust the formalities will have been completed by the time you return.” And as suddenly as that, it was over. He watched the other man get into the car, methodically reverse it, and continue up the road without haste. And he… he was…

“Shall we push,” asked Father Brown at his shoulder, “or ride?”

Sullivan crouched by the bicycle he had thrown to the ground, testing for damage, his back to the priest. He cleared his throat. “Damage to the front rim.” His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears. “Better not risk it.”

“Very wise,” said Father Brown. Sullivan was visited — not for the first time — by the uneasy suspicion that Brown _knew_ what he was thinking: that the damage was negligible, that he would have risked a pinch flat in any case, but not the possibility of shame, of his legs refusing to pedal, of collapsing in a heap, bicycle and all, undone by exhaustion and relief.

“Right,” said Sullivan, and picked up the bicycle. “Best be on our way, then.” 

“Just over two miles, I think,” said Brown cheerfully, as though he were answering a question. _Two miles._ Sullivan was already pushing, resolutely not looking back at the priest. Two miles. That would be over an hour, at Father Brown’s pace. And he himself had opted not to ride. Two miles and one hour of this man burbling along to himself in innocent satisfaction, passing remarks on the hedgerows, or telling Sullivan about his parishioners. And even hearing about who had gout and who was expecting a blessed event and who had agreed to superintend the jumble sale would be preferable, Sullivan thought bitterly, to Father Brown turning his inexhaustible, impenetrable good humor to the topic that must preoccupy both of them.

“I don’t see why — ” said Sullivan aloud, and bit off the rest of the sentence. 

“Why we didn’t just throw the bicycles on the back of the car and bundle in? Well,” said Brown, “Mrs. Greensleeves seems much more likely to try to slip a knife between your ribs than to sit quietly, don’t you think?” The priest blinked. Sullivan tried to shake the idea that Brown knew very well what he had been going to say.

“She might have tried to put a knife between your ribs.”

Father Brown chuckled. “She’d have had trouble finding them.”

“Mm.”

“Might have gotten the liver, I suppose,” added the priest reflectively, “or — ”

“Don’t,” said Sullivan, and regretted it instantly.

“No,” said Brown, “no, of course not.” 

Sullivan tightened his jaw, and lengthened his stride. For some time they walked in silence. “One of my own men,” said Sullivan, when it became preferable to being alone with his thoughts. “One of my own men, Father, with his blood on my hands.” _And me responsible for his last words, and for his death, and for telling about it afterwards, and for keeping silence about what cannot be told._ “I never thought,” said Sullivan, “I never thought…”

“You thought you’d never have to do that again,” finished Father Brown quietly. “Or hoped you wouldn’t.”

He looked over at the priest, and looked away again without replying. He closed his eyes briefly; he certainly was not going to tell Brown about London. He would say nothing of the gunshots, nothing of the other man’s blood and his own screams, nothing of the terrible pity in the eyes of his superior. Sullivan opened his eyes. The road was still empty, the day still silent except for birdsong. There was a game he had played with himself during the war, when walks like this became unbearable: _you only have to walk to that next milestone, the cracked one_ or _just until you can see what’s over the crest_ or _just to that alder_ …

“Would you mind terribly,” said Brown, a little breathlessly, “if we rested for a bit just here?” Sullivan shook himself slightly, gestured towards the verge as though he were inviting Brown to take a chair in his office. With much puffing and blowing, the portly priest settled himself against the tree. Sullivan stretched to his full length on the grass and threw an arm over his face.

“Silly, really,” said Brown, sounding not at all perturbed. “I should be ashamed of myself, fatigued after a mile’s walk on a fine day. But — well! — it’s been a wearing day, one way and another.” The priest sighed; it sounded absurdly like a sigh of contentment.

“Mm.” Sullivan forced himself to make some sort of reply, however inarticulate. It would be far too easy to fall asleep. Methodically he catalogued the things that should keep him from doing so: the root under his head, the stone against his back, the stolen bicycle at his side, the priest in his shabby cassock… Brown was mumbling Latin now; Sullivan told himself he shouldn’t find it soothing.

“I have to do it, you know,” said Sullivan, after an _amen_.

“Yes?” 

“Yes,” said Sullivan firmly. “Even with you. Especially with you. The line has to be held. Quite apart from the fact that contamination of a crime scene puts the collection of evidence at serious risk — ” He broke off, convinced that Brown recognized the digression for what it was as soon as it had left his lips. “Order,” said Sullivan, and hoped he didn’t sound wistful. “You say you know people — what they’ll do, what they won’t do, what they couldn’t do — we can’t know that about each other. We can’t even know that about ourselves.” _You can’t think I liked imprisoning that poor woman with her son in hospital…_ He will not lower himself to making such a plea for understanding. 

“It’s my job,” continued Sullivan, “to act on the evidence.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “It’s my job. And even in a place like this — God, especially in a place like this — police work isn’t a matter of knowing one’s neighbors. It’s a matter of following routine. I know,” said Sullivan, “that it is not your duty, but it is mine. And what would we have, if no one insisted on doing things by the book?”

“Chaos,” said the priest simply, and Sullivan was so startled that he rolled up onto one elbow. “Or perhaps,” continued Father Brown, “a world where the wolf and the lamb might feed together, and the lion eat straw like the bullock.”

“Father…”

“And dust,” said Father Brown dreamily, “shall be the serpent’s meat. Shall we go on?”

“Right.” Sullivan got to his feet, trying to ignore the aches and knots that made themselves known as he did so, and reached out his hand to the priest.

***

“Truman’s waiting in your office, inspector,” said the WPC on the desk as they entered the station, as if he didn’t look like something the cat had dragged in, as though he weren’t wearing stained overalls instead of police blues. As if he weren’t still, officially, a wanted criminal… or is that what Truman had meant by the formalities? Sullivan straightened his shoulders, and focused on walking the corridor without pausing to catalogue the scuffs on the linoleum, the dog-eared public safety posters, the unprepossessing minutiae of a life he had thought he might not come back to. He checked in his stride for an instant; but the question of why he had fought, with such desperation, not just for his honor but for this life, in this place, would have to wait for another time.

“Ah, Sullivan,” said Truman, and Sullivan noted with wonder that the other man had not, in his absence, taken the place behind his desk. He shook his mysterious colleague’s hand.

“Sorry to land you with the paperwork.”

“Only fair, under the circumstances — to say nothing of the fact that my branch would’ve had my guts for garters if I’d let anyone else near it.” Sullivan was dimly aware of the fact that, surprisingly, Truman was buying him time before he had to listen or speak. He supposed he should summon gratitude from somewhere, but he was focused very hard on not leaning against his desk for support, on not reaching to caress its scarred surface, on not letting them see that his hands were shaking. Brown had followed, of course, as though he had a right to be there. But as Sullivan was attempting to rally himself to protest, he was preempted.

“Father Brown,” said Inspector Truman, “should stay. What happened today — didn’t happen.” _Oh, not riddles._

“Quite so,” said Father Brown, as if it were obvious.

“Yes?” said Sullivan expectantly, and did not raise a hand to his temples.

So Truman explained the whole business — the whole sordid business of high politics and low betrayals. The worst of it was that Sullivan understood Truman’s calculus completely: his own ordeal had been, in the context of Truman’s mission, nothing less than necessary; his was a life worthily gambled for the greater good. Sullivan wished that knowledge, settling into his chest, didn’t feel so familiar. Similarly inevitable seemed to be the fact that Father Brown had blundered, in his magnificent innocence, straight into the heart of the business — had been _protecting_ him, dammit.

He snapped at Goodfellow, when the man came in. Half a minute earlier, and the sergeant’s perfunctory knock would have thrown his career into the balance. But he couldn’t know that. _What kind of man,_ Sullivan asked himself bitterly, _apologizes by asking for a cup of tea?_ But Sergeant Goodfellow, _Naturmensch_ that he was, practically beamed at him.

Truman — whoever he really was — drank his tea quickly, and made his excuses. Handshaking all around, and he was gone, vanished back to London and his secret world. It was too much to hope for, of course, that Brown would go with him. The priest sat in his chair, holding his teacup encircled in one pudgy hand, gazing out the window as if abstracted.

“Planning your next sermon, Father?”

“Hm? Oh, dear me, no! I was just thinking,” said the priest, blinking at him, “that your milk will have gone off.”

“What?”

“Your milk,” said Father Brown. “Gone off.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“Oh! Well, I’m afraid I assumed that, ah, that you wouldn’t have had someone doing the shopping for you.”

Sullivan laughed at that in spite of himself. “No.” _And the char would probably refuse to come at all now, unless his notoriety made him a valuable client, as providing a rich mine of gossip…_ “No,” he said again, “there’s no one.”

“Well then,” said the priest triumphantly, “your milk will be off. And you can’t very well go home to half a loaf of moldy bread. Mrs. McCarthy would never forgive me.”

Perceiving the danger too late, Sullivan sat painfully bolt upright in his chair. “Oh no, Father.”

“My dear inspector,” began Father Brown, but Sullivan held up a forestalling hand and, astonishingly, the priest allowed himself to be silenced by it. It was a daunting prospect: to place himself at the mercy once again of this turbulent priest, of his impossible Irish housekeeper, of that bloody recidivist and the butter-wouldn’t-melt socialite…. Sullivan rested his head against one hand. _Sei standhaft, duldsam, und verschwiegen._ There had been plenty of that for him, in these last days: tenacity, endurance, silence. What possible purpose, after all, could it serve for him to go home to a musty house, to unaired sheets, to whatever disorder had resulted from the inevitable search for evidence… and whatever was salvageable from a moldy loaf of bread? For him to turn up for work tomorrow — as he supposed he was expected to do — half-starved and wholly out of sorts would certainly do no one any good.

“Do you listen to much Mozart, Father?” 

“Ah! no; no, I’m afraid not. The liturgical settings, of course, are…”

“He wrote an opera,” said Sullivan, “about the meaning of which no one is certain; but everyone agrees that it is intentionally and profoundly mystical.” He raised his head to look at the priest. “Not unlike the Bible, perhaps.”

“Very like,” agreed Father Brown, apparently incapable of taking offense. 

“It’s about… well, it’s about a lot of things, but it follows a young man who has to solve mysteries, gain knowledge, undergo trials…. He marries a princess at the end, of course. And do you know what the first words of the opera are, Father? The first words spoken by this young man?” Sullivan stood up from his chair. “ ‘Help me! Help me, or I am lost!’ He is running for his life — this hero of ours — and his first utterance is a cry for help.” The silence hung heavily over them both. “He says it repeatedly, of course,” said Sullivan wryly, “since it’s an opera.”

Father Brown beamed. “Of course.”

Sullivan cleared his throat. “I suppose,” said he, “that what I’m trying to say, Father, is…” He swallowed. “What I’m trying to say is, that it’s very kind of you, and I — ”

“Oh, good!” exclaimed Father Brown, with every appearance of meaning it. “You’ll come now?”

“I…” Sullivan surveyed the empty surface of his desk, and managed to smile at his unlikely benefactor. “I don’t seem to have anything else to do.”

***

Sullivan was pushing the priest’s bicycle. He was also actively trying not to suspect Father Brown of having asked him to do so in order that the inspector might have something to lean on for the brief duration of their walk to the presbytery.

“You came to me,” said Brown, apropos of nothing, looking at nothing in particular.

Sullivan swallowed. “Yes.”

The priest nodded. “You knew I would help you.”

“Yes. Or — I suppose I hoped you would. What I did _not_ expect,” added Sullivan, “was your enlisting of your perverse band of accomplices in some sort of elaborate plot to outwit the forces of law and order. I only needed…”

“Sanctuary,” said the priest softly. 

“Yes.” For several moments they were both silent, the bicycle’s faint creaking the only sound. “Will you — will you thank that sister for me? I don’t know what their rules are, or…”

“She won’t have been given a penance,” said Father Brown; “not under the circumstances. But I will give her your thanks.”

Sullivan nodded acknowledgment. When they were under the shadow of St. Mary’s tower, he said: “I don’t know why you’re doing this for me — this, now. I don’t know why I’m _letting_ you.”

“Perhaps because your milk is off,” said the priest tranquilly. “Perhaps because you’ll need someone else to bandage that hand. Perhaps because you can’t remember the last time you slept through the night.” Sullivan looked at him sharply. “And perhaps,” continued Father Brown imperturbably, “simply because we have become friends, after a fashion. Is that so impossible?”

“Yes,” answered Sullivan promptly. He exhaled. “But I do know — I do know that’s my fault.”

“Nonsense.” 

“Is it?” 

“Yes, my son.”

Sullivan was still recovering from that one when they arrived at the presbytery. Mrs. McCarthy greeted them with her hands clasped — actually clasped — at her breast, and a voluble torrent of mingled relief, reproach, and instruction. He nearly fell over when attempting to respond to _take those filthy shoes off at once, good heavens_ , but mercifully, neither of them seemed to notice. He stood on her braided rug in his stockinged feet and swayed, and marveled.

“Now you,” said Mrs. McCarthy, grasping him firmly by one arm, “just sit down there and bide a bit.” It was impossible not to obey. Worse, it was impossible not to _want_ to obey, to take orders and do nothing else. Mrs. McCarthy, still talking, returned to her work at the stove.

When he next forced his eyes open, it was to find a glass of water on the table in front of him, and Father Brown seated opposite, an astonishing apparition in shirtsleeves. Sullivan downed the contents of the glass without speaking, but held out a hand when the priest made to rise. “No, I — I’ll get it.” He drank the second glass more slowly, still standing at the sink. Remarkable, what a difference it made, to be standing in someone else’s kitchen: to not be responsible for the dishes in the draining rack, or the maintenance of the windows, or whatever was bubbling on the range. When he had refilled the glass again, he returned to the table. He ached in every limb.

“No ill-effects from our adventures today, I trust, Father?”

“Oh!” The priest chuckled, and grimaced. “I cannot claim as much. But Mrs. McCarthy’s grandmother’s lineament recipe is remarkably effective. Fortunately, it’s not a busy season, liturgically — ordinary time, you know — and there aren’t many baptisms, and the only banns to be read are for the Collinses to be, and there hasn’t been much sickness, thank God…”

“And a funeral.” 

“Yes,” agreed Father Brown. “And Mr. Albert’s funeral. ‘For whosoever will save his life,’” he quoted softly, “‘shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’” Sullivan nodded mutely, unable to meet the other man’s eyes. Almost he could wish himself able to believe such consolations. 

Mrs. McCarthy banged down a pot lid, and he jerked back into full consciousness. “I don’t know what they were thinking, arresting the inspector. After all, he’s _police_.”

“That don’t make no odds,” said an all-too-familiar voice from the doorway. “Or it shouldn’t, anyway.”

“Quite right, Sid,” said the priest, “and I’m sure the inspector would be the first to agree.”

“Oh, yes.” Sullivan resisted the temptation to rub at the nape of his neck. “Yes, absolutely.” 

“And as we all know,” persisted Sid, “perfectly innocent persons can get themselves into incriminating situations. As it might be the good inspector here, or as it might be someone looking after some belongings for a friend. Friendly-like,” added Sid, for emphasis, since the quality of the silence in the kitchen was less than encouraging. “It’s hardly receiving of stolen goods within the meaning of the act.”

“Sid,” said Mrs. McCarthy firmly, “get out the Red Leicester. Father, the sherry, I think.” Then they were all talking at once, amid a clatter of improbably delicate glassware. 

“No,” said Sullivan, inarticulately. It silenced them effectively enough. He took up the proffered sherry glass, and got to his feet. He wanted to look Carter in the eye for this. “You,” he said, “have everything.” His voice trembled slightly with the effort of holding it even. He knew he couldn’t risk meeting the priest’s eyes, or looking directly at Mrs. McCarthy, a picture of dismay by her stove. “You have everything, Carter. And yet — look, I don’t want to hear any more about it. Not tonight, not ever. Now — ” He raised his glass. “If I may, I’d like to propose a toast.” He swallowed. “To all of you. In gratitude.” Mrs. McCarthy began to flutter, but a gesture from Father Brown silenced her, and solemnly they drank to him, even Carter. Perhaps Sullivan was imagining that the younger man had the grace to look slightly chastened.

“And,” said Brown cheerfully, “a toast to justice.” 

“Justice,” they chorused after him.

“And that’s all very lovely I’m sure,” said Mrs. McCarthy briskly, handing her glass off to him, “but I want you all out from under my feet — Sid, cutlery; Father, plates, if you would — if I’m to get this onto the table.”

***

Frank Albert’s funeral took place less than a week later, before Sullivan had consumed all of the groceries that had mysteriously appeared in his kitchen before he had returned to his own home. 

_“Compliments of Lady Felicia!” Carter had been entirely unembarrassed._

_“That doesn’t answer the question of how you got into my house.”_

_“No, it don’t! But you said you didn’t want to hear nothing about such things, and my lips, inspector, are sealed. Cheerio!”_

Here, at least, Sullivan reflected grimly, he was on familiar ground, and in a familiar role. And he knew in advance that nothing he could do would be adequate. Not for the first time, he straightened the hem of his dress tunic. He resisted the impulse to check that his medals were lying flat, or to smooth over the scar on his jaw as though willing it to fade. It seemed insulting, somehow, to appear so lightly marked at the funeral of a man who had given everything, whose family had lost everything. Sullivan clenched his hands at his sides.

“I have chosen,” said Father Brown at his elbow, “the chasuble with the gold lining.”

“Oh? Lovely.”

“No, no, inspector,” said the priest; “you don’t understand.”

“I’m sure I don’t.” 

“Easter,” said Father Brown, smiling beatifically. “It is the color of Easter, and of the resurrection. Black for funerals, always, of course; but the gold lining is a nice touch, I always think.” Sullivan stared at him.

“The liturgy,” continued Father Brown, “says that even God does things by the book, in the end — that there is a book in which all our deeds are recorded. It says that all shall need mercy, even the just. And it says that no evil act shall go unavenged.”

Sullivan managed to nod, once and tightly. The priest laid a hand on his arm — briefly, lightly — and together they walked into the church.

**Author's Note:**

> Naturmensch -- a person guided more by the desire for physical comfort and emotional health than spiritual endurance. A term used for Papageno, the sidekick/friend of the long-suffering hero in "Die Zauberflöte."
> 
> Sanctuary -- in canon law, the right of one pursued by the (secular) law to take refuge in a church, as being there under the jurisdiction of God and his church alone.


End file.
